


i don't want to be the reason you aren't alive anymore

by emzular



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: And then there's angst, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Lots of Angst, Nile Joe and Nicky are more mentioned than featured, Quynh finds Andy, Quynh learns about Andy's condition, a hopeful ending, but Andy thinks about them A LOT, more promising than happy, they fight, they have issues they need to resolve, tw: description of injuries and stitching them up, tw: lots of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25409425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emzular/pseuds/emzular
Summary: When Quynh finds her, she's ready for a fight.What she isn't ready for, is the conversation that follows.“Then why did you bother coming to find me?” Asked Andy. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? To kill me?”“Wanting to kill you and wanting you gone forever are two very different things in our world,” said Quynh, shaking her head. “I don’t want to be the reason you aren’t alive anymore.”
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 24
Kudos: 442





	i don't want to be the reason you aren't alive anymore

**Author's Note:**

> (I haven't read the graphic novels and this likely isn't anywhere NEAR canon, this is simply a headcanon that became 3k)  
> I think this is quite angsty, guys, I apologise.  
> also I tagged violence but it's more just lots of blood and stitching wounds, but i tagged GV. 
> 
> Not sure how to write Quynh as a character yet, so this is me still trying to figure her out (seeing as we ONLY got a few minutes of the glorious Veronica Ngo).  
> Also SOME of this might come off as anti-Andy, but I was just writing in third person limited, just channeling Andy's angst - i love her character so much, so i'm really sorry if it comes off negative, she's just so angsty, I can't write her happy right now !!
> 
> as always, no beta so let me know if you catch typos or errors, thanks!

If Andy had known today was the day she’d find herself face to face with Quynh after nearly six hundred years, she’d have worn a nicer shirt. As it was, the moment her eyes clocked Andy, Quynh didn’t seem bothered by her attire, only that her fist slammed into Andy’s nose. 

Andy was at the house, on her own. Nile had been having dreams of Quynh getting closer and closer, and the others had begun smothering Andy. Joe had spent the entire of last week refusing to leave her side and, even worse, Nicky had begun tailing her in what he likely thought was secret, but Andy had been able to pick out his shadow amongst the rooftops every time she left the house on an errand. Nile was the worst, always asking questions and checking up on her. 

_‘You good?’_

_‘Do you need anything?’_

_‘How’s today?’_

It had boiled to the point where Andy had snapped, and told them the night before to get _out of her hair_ before she got out of theirs, for good. When she’d woken up in the morning, Nile was already out for day. Joe and Nicky had made breakfast, before bidding farewell to Andy and vanishing off with the car to do god knows what. Andy was relieved to have the house to herself.

Of course _that_ was when Quynh chose to strike. 

Andy hadn’t fought another immortal, other than Nile, in years. Not properly. She and the boys had sparred often, but not since her mortality, and even before it hadn’t been real fighting. It had been training. This, against Quynh, was real. And for the first time in centuries, Andy was genuinely in fear for her own life. Quynh was as powerful, if not more so, than ever before, being fuelled by rage that Andy could see pouring off her in waves, and it took every bit of her strength to block even half of the blows. Quynh was fighting with her fists, but Andy knew it wouldn’t last long. She’d always preferred blades to brawn.

It took three minutes for Quynh to grow tired, and pull out a blade. It was familiar, though not the same as the one Quynh had used once upon a time. The intricate pattern along the hilt, carved with care and precision, was of a similar cultural design, but it was not Quynh’s original dagger. Andy wondered if Quynh had bothered to look for it; Andy herself had spent years searching for her labrys after the witch trials. She’d looked for Quynh’s blade too, but it had been long lost. Clearly Quynh hadn’t been able to find it either. Or maybe she simply hadn’t bothered looking, revenge far more important than the weapon used.

Lost in her thoughts, Andy missed a dodge, and Quynh’s blade sliced, deep, into her left arm, just below the shoulder. Andy grunted, and leapt back, moving through the living room like an injured beast, territorial, eyes blazing.

Quynh laughed. “What has become of you?” She asked. “One hit and you’re on the back foot already?”

_‘If only you knew’,_ thought Andy. 

She cast her eyes around the vicinity, searching for something to use as a weapon. There was a gun in the dining room, and her labrys was in her bedroom, but to fetch either would require her to turn her back on Quynh. And Andy knew Quynh was an excellent shot; her back turned, Quynh would throw the dagger and strike gold. For a second, Andy considered simply letting her have the shot. 

_‘Let her_ ,’ she thought. _‘Let her end it_.’

But then she thought of Nile, of Joe and Nicky. _‘It’s because we care, Andy,_ ’ Joe had said, before he and Nicky had left that morning. _‘We’re family_.’

With an angry sigh, Andy lunged towards the kitchen, and her hand found purchase on a knife from the drying rack before Quynh could judge her next move. Now equally as armed, Andy realised she was going to have to play it careful. Her left arm was in no state to be fighting, the blood pooling out from underneath her shirt. She held the knife, firmly, in her right hand, and placed her left slightly behind her back, out of the way. 

She was going to have to be defensive, and hope Quynh wore herself out long enough for Andy to make a run for a gun. She had to hope that one shot to the head would down Quynh long enough to escape. Not that Andy wanted run from Quynh; the opposite in fact. She wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her mortal life staring at the beautiful woman, feeling the pain of her mistake mix with the pain of her love for Quynh until it consumed her. 

But Andy wouldn’t survive this fight, and Quynh deserved to know the truth about Andy before striking a fateful blow. 

Quynh came at her, fast, and Andy dodged out of the way, back into the living room. Quynh followed, slicing down. Andy pushed the blade away with her own, the sound of metal on metal reverberating through the room. She was on the back-foot, as Quynh struck down and across, narrowly avoiding each. Andy was grateful this had happened in the house, a location she knew well enough to manoeuvre through backwards. They reached the couch, and Andy threw herself backwards over it, kicking out at Quynh as she did, knocking the woman and her blade back a few inches, and nearly causing the dagger to slice into Quynh’s face.

“Fight back,” Quynh hissed.

But Andy did not. 

Quynh followed her over the couch, and this time when she brought her dagger down, Andy parried it away with the kitchen knife. Quynh began to grow more impatient, hisses turning into growls as each time she gained ground, Andy retreated. 

She was now only a few feet from the dining room, where Joe’s loaded pistol lay taped to the underside of the table. All she needed was for Quynh to falter, once, and she’d be able to turn her back and run for the weapon. 

But Quynh didn’t falter. Andy was impressed; having been trapped underwater for such a time as she had, Andy wasn’t sure she herself would’ve had the strength to fight like Quynh was. But Quynh was fuelled by rage, and Andy wasn’t a stranger to what rage could make people do, what it had made _her_ do after escaping her captors.

It was thoughts of rage that paved the way for the end. A mere foot from the dining room, Andy lost the fight. Quynh swung with such force, a force Andy had never seen from her before, that it sent the blade flying from Andy’s grasp. The kitchen knife flew through the room, narrowly missing the television, and Andy was defenceless. Quynh made her next strike, and with nothing else to do, Andy leapt back, throwing her arms out to balance herself. As she did, the still bleeding cut on her left arm tugged, muscle and flesh crying out in agony. Andy staggered, eyes going wide as the pain shot through her. She’d torn the cut further open, and blood was pooling out, hot and sticky against her sweat soaked arm.

“Fight back!” Yelled Quynh, again. “Why won’t you _fight back_!”

But Andy couldn’t. She couldn’t even raise her left arm into a fighting stance. The blood was pouring out of the gash quicker and quicker, and Andy knew if she didn’t attempt to cover it she’d slowly bleed out.

Sensing Quynh come closer, bloodied weapon still raised, Andy looked up, and for the first time in six hundred years, their eyes locked. 

_I can’t_ , Andy wanted to say. She looked into Quynh’s eyes, and begged. _I can’t_.Her hand came up to cover the gash, and she pressed, hard, to stop the flow of blood. A noise involuntarily escaped her, and her eyes began to blink. 

“What is this?” Asked Quynh, voice barely above a whisper. “You-… You’re not…”

“I’m done,” Said Andy, and a laugh bubbled in her throat. “I’m _done_ , Quynh.”

“No.” Quynh shook her head, hair lifelessly drooped around her face. 

“Yes,” said Andy. 

The dagger in Quynh’s hand dropped to the floor, and bounced, landing in the space between the two women. Andy pressed harder on the cut. 

“Truce?” She asked, looking from Quynh to the kitchen, where she had stashed the first aid kit Joe had bought for her. Quynh followed her gaze. 

“What do you need?”

“First cupboard,” said Andy. When Quynh headed for the kitchen, her back to Andy, the latter let herself wince. It was a lot more painful than she was letting on. But she wouldn’t let Quynh know how badly it hurt. Quynh deserved to feel rage; Andy didn’t want her feeling guilt. If she died right now, Andy didn’t want Quynh to feel anything but rage and relief. Quynh deserved to take whatever she wanted from Andy. And Andy was going to let her. 

Just right after Quynh let her stitch up. Then they could go at it with fists. 

Andy moved onto the sofa, as Quynh came back into the room, holding the first aid kit upside down. It was a strange sight to see, watching a woman she had known before plastic was even invented, holding a box so modern. Andy wondered what Quynh would have made of the invention of half of the things in the house, of the television she likely hadn’t had chance to watch, or of the radio. Andy had a feeling Quynh would prefer the radio to television. Andy, herself, did. 

Quynh sat, rigidly, on the sofa beside Andy, and held out the box. Andy used her left hand, hissing when the cut muscles protested, to unlatch the box, and reveal the contents. 

“Same as always,” said Andy, pointing to the needle and thread. She glanced up at Quynh. She wasn’t sure if this truce included Quynh helping her, but Andy had learnt, in the four months Nile had been with them, that asking for help wasn’t the bad thing five hundred or-so years had made her feel like it was.

_‘What makes you weak is going off on your own and getting hurt and not telling anyone,’_ Nile had yelled one evening, after Andy had come back from a one-woman-bar-crawl, bruised after a rowdy fight. _‘What’s weak is you keeping shit from us when you told me we’d all keep each other safe. You promised me, Andy. You promised we’d be a team.’_

“Could you, uh…” Andy pointed to the needle again. “Could you thread it? Please?”

Quynh didn’t speak, but she pulled the needle from the container it was in, sterilised and untouched, and unraveled enough thread to begin sliding it through the needle-eye. When it was ready, Andy removed her right hand from the cut, and suddenly it felt like no time had passed between them at all.

Placing her thumb below the cut and her fingers above it, to keep the skin in place, Quynh began to sow. They had done this a thousand times before, though rarely to each other. After coming to the aid of villages or towns, Quynh and Andy would often stay behind to help the injured, tending to wounds and inviting themselves into places where sickness was rife, knowing they wouldn’t be at risk. Occasionally, if they had been on the run, if one of them sustained a larger injury that wouldn’t heal quick enough, they’d loosely stitch it in order for them to get running. Seeing Quynh with a needle in her hand wasn’t an unfamiliar sight to Andy. 

But it was a strange one, after so long apart. 

And feeling Quynh’s fingertips on her skin was even worse. It was a pain worse than the one emanating from her arm, a stabbing sensation to her chest. Quynh’s hands were cold, impossibly so, and Andy wondered if it was a side effect of being underwater for so many years. Her fingertips were soft, too, softer than they had ever been before.

Several moments passed, and Andy’s mind was a blur with words she wanted to say, but she couldn’t string a sentence together. Nothing but _sorry_ was coming to the surface. 

_Sorry._

_Sorry, I’m sorry, Quynh I’m so sorry-_

“This was not what I had in mind when I envisioned our meeting,” said Quynh breaking the silence. “I wanted to find you and kill you, over and over, and _over_ , so you knew what it felt like.”

Andy scoffed. “Too late.”

The silence that followed was uncomfortable. Quynh’s next thread went particularly deep, and Andy hissed. Quynh didn’t apologise; Andy wouldn’t have wanted her too. 

“How long?” Asked Quynh. 

Andy understood. “Few months ago,” said Andy. “A week after we found Nile.” Quynh’s brow furrowed, and her hands stopped. Andy raised an eyebrow. “She’s nice. Feisty; you’ll like her.”

But Quynh ignored her. “Exactly how many months?” She asked.

“Four,” Said Andy. “Nearly five. Why?”

Quynh sat back, a strange look in her eyes. “Four months and twenty one days.”

“What?” Asked Andy. 

“That is when I surfaced.”

Andy’s eyes widened, a fraction. “When we found Nile, she was having dreams of you still under the water.”

“I dreamt of her,” said Quynh. “And then the next thing I knew I was swimming up.” She sat up, shaking her head. “It’s all connected,” Quynh said. “Her, me…” Her eyes flickered to the half-stitched wound, and then met Andy’s. “ _You_.”

“Maybe,” said Andy.

“This is no coincidence, Andromache,” Quynh said. “The universe is trying to tell us something.”

“It’s trying to tell me I’m out of time,” said Andy. “It’s why it sent Nile. Reminded me what it was like to feel _human_. Normal. I get it, that’s the message.”

“But its _more_ than that,” said Quynh, and she grasped Andy’s hand in her’s, gently so as not to jostle the arm too much, and Andy found it strangely soft for Quynh to be so careful. “It’s more, Andy, don’t you see?”

Her eyes were wide and wild, madness swirling beneath the surface, and Andy found herself drawn in. “What more is there?”

“Me,” said Quynh, barely a whisper. She had crept closer, face now an inch from Andy’s. “And you. I broke free, and you ran out of time.”

Maybe she was right. Andy had been healing when she’d found Nile; She’d had no trouble then. It was only after that, after Nile had started having dreams of Quynh, that it changed. That fight after the dreams, when Joe and Nicky had been taken, that was when it started. _Right_ after the dreams. 

“What does that mean?” Asked Andy, feeling her lungs tighten. She remembered this feeling. It used to overcome her whenever she was around Quynh. Breathlessness, and awe, looking into those perfect brown eyes, feeling her skin beneath her fingertips. 

“It mean’s maybe I’m out of time too,” said Quynh. She hadn’t blinked in a minute, and Andy realised she hadn’t either. 

“Are you?”

Quynh swallowed. Andy’s eyes flickered to her neck; she had forgotten many things about Quynh, but not that neck. Not what it felt like, nor what it tasted like to press her lips to it. “I haven’t tried.”

“Don’t-“ Andy began, but before she could grab Quynh, the woman had pulled back. She picked up the needle she’d been using to stitch Andy’s wound, and sliced down her arm, from elbow to wrist. Andy took the needle from her, and threw it as far as she could. “What are you-“

“ _Wait_!” Hissed Quynh. She held out her arm, a slow trickle of blood beginning to seep from the shallow cut. Both women stared, breaths held, waiting.

And waiting. 

It took five minutes for the cut to being to heal, an absurd amount of time for such a simple wound. Andy recalled Nile’s arm going from broken and split, to fully healed in seconds on the plane. New and fresh, Nile had healed her entire body of broken bones in under a minute. But Quynh, old and having died every minute for the last six hundred years, was healing slow enough to be noticeable. 

“I’m close,” said Quynh, and all Andy could do was nod. Her mouth was dry. Quynh was close. Five minutes was a long time to heal a cut from a needle. “The next time I die, it might be my last.”

“Then don’t die,” said Andy. She looked up, and found Quynh staring at her, not at her arm. “What?”

Quynh took a breath, and her posture changed into something more formal, as if performing something she had prepared.“I was so angry at you for leaving me.”

“Quynh-“

“Let me finish,” Quynh snapped. Andy reluctantly nodded. “I spent centuries thinking of the millions of ways I would kill you. And trust me, there are millions.” She huffed. “But it wasn’t always hate. In the moments just before death, every time, it wasn’t hatred with which I imaged you. It was pain; Every second before death, I saw you reaching for me, and I felt your rage, and your pain.” She looked down at the shallow cut on her arm, and then at Andy’s much deeper wound. “I could not hate you, but that does not mean I forgave you.”

“I’m sorry,” said Andy.

“Are you.” It wasn’t a question; Quynh didn’t believe her. 

“I stopped searching,” said Andy, and she dropped her head, forehead falling onto Quynh’s shoulder. “I stopped and I-… I will never forgive myself.” She huffed; “I’m sorry you won’t get to kill me over and over again. You deserve to.”

“There are other people to kill,” said Quynh.

A few moments passed, and Andy looked up. Quynh’s were swimming with the threat of madness, insanity crashing upon sanity like waves upon a stoney beach. Andy was entranced, captivated by what she once knew and loved, so changed, and yet still so much of the same. 

“I’d let you,” Said Andy, after she regained some composure, and pulled herself to the surface. 

“Let me?” Asked Quynh, and she blinked, finally. 

Andy swallowed. “End me.”

“I don’t want to end you,” said Quynh.

“But I’d let you,” said Andy. “Why not let it be you who-“

“I’m not going to end your life,” snapped Quynh. “That’s not how this is going to go.”

“Why not? I basically ended yours.” Andy looked down at her hands, at her badly cut nails, and at her right, stained with her own blood. “I want you to do it.”

Quynh’s fists clenched on her lap. “I’m not going to agree to this.”

“You deserve to be the one to do it-“

“Stop,” said Quynh. “I won’t do it.”

“Then why did you bother coming to find me?” Asked Andy, looking back up. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? To kill me?”

“Wanting to kill you and wanting you forever gone are two very different things in our world,” said Quynh, shaking her head. “I don’t want to be the reason you aren’t alive anymore.”

That hurt. All the thinking Andy had done had brought her to the conclusion that she would, in fact, let Quynh be the one to kill her. And to hear Quynh refuse overwhelmed Andy with both relief, and despair. Relief at getting a chance to prove to Quynh that she was sorry, to have at least one more moment with Quynh, to _live_. But despair, at having accepted her fate only for it to be thrown back at her, and refused. Andy felt her hands begin to shake, in a way they hadn’t since she was back in England, in the hours after Quynh had been taken from her and she had cried herself to sleep. The shaking didn’t stop, no matter how hard she willed it to. 

Quynh’s hands came down on hers, the smooth fingers sliding over Andy’s pale skin, and her near-visible knuckles. “I don’t forgive you,” she said softly. “But one day I might. And I want you to live long enough to see that day.”

She came closer, and Andy’s eyes fluttered shut on a reflex that hadn’t been used in six hundred years. Dry lips touched hers, and Andy felt both simultaneously at peace and full of fear all at once. 

It wasn’t like any kiss they had shared before. 

Before there had been love, or lust, something passionate; but more than that there had been something so familiar, something so intrinsically _known_ that Andy could have picked Quynh’s lips out of a thousand. Andy’s heart still ached for Quynh, but the familiarity was gone. Whether it was the years apart, the resentment Quynh had held for her, or perhaps it was Andy’s lack of immortality. Something was different.

But it only made Andy’s heart beat faster. That Quynh had been the one to instigate it, that Quynh, who one day might _forgive her_ , had kissed her.

It felt like starting over. 

_It felt like a second chance._

After a while, Andy pulled away, eyes bursting open, an overwhelming need to look at Quynh taking over her, to make sure this was real, to see that she was really there. Quynh took a moment longer, blinking. 

“It’s been a long time,” said Quynh.

Andy nodded, lips feeling numb. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising,” said Quynh. “It doesn’t make it any better.”

Andy sighed. “What else am I supposed to say?”

“How about you don’t say anything?” Quynh reached out a hand and cupped Andy’s cheek. The cut on her arm had healed fully now, and Andy was reminded of her own wound, still not stitched properly. But at least it had stopped bleeding.

Andy placed her hand over Quynh’s, her warm palm against Quynh’s cold knuckles. “I can be silent.”

“Silents not what I want.” Quynh leant forwards and her lips met Andy’s. 

This time it felt familiar, but a _new_ familiar. 

Even if she didn’t have forever with Quynh, she’d take what she could. There was a lot to clear up between them. Had Andy been in Quynh’s position, they likely wouldn’t be anywhere close to where they were now - Andy knew she wouldn’t have stopped fighting, not for one second. Andy wouldn’t have stopped fighting until she had her revenge, but Quynh had. It was another reason Andy had loved her for as long as she had. Quynh and she were two sides of a coin, the same, but different: Where Quynh may be able to forgive Andy, Andy knew she would never be able to forgive herself. 

And now Quynh knew the truth, about Andy, that they didn’t have forever. And so for now, Andy would take what she could. Quynh’s time was drawing close, and Andy wasn’t sure she’d be able to cope with losing her twice. Andy could only hope she died before Quynh did. It’s what she deserved. 


End file.
